


Hurts Like Hell

by EternallyEC



Series: Behind your Broadway show, I heard a voice say please don't hurt me [1]
Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/F, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23586964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternallyEC/pseuds/EternallyEC
Summary: Which of them really destroyed their chances? And is anything ever really destroyed without repair if they're both still willing to fight for it?Based on a prompt from the Jori Discord
Relationships: Tori Vega/Jade West
Series: Behind your Broadway show, I heard a voice say please don't hurt me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698103
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	Hurts Like Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This is a re-post, as some of you might know. It was pointed out to me that what I intended with this story didn't come off quite as well as I'd hoped, so I wanted to tighten it up a bit and give it some polish, seeing as how it wasn't originally intended for publishing anyway. 
> 
> Hope this works a little better, please let me know what you think!

**JADE**

Jade rolled her eyes as she checked her phone. It had been radio silence from Vega for over two days now, and she was starting to get annoyed. Sure, she knew that she'd fucked up by letting Beck kiss her at the Full Moon Jam after she'd performed the song she'd written for Tori, but she'd been scared.

Beck, for all his faults, was familiar, safe. He didn't make her heart race or her breath catch in her throat, he didn't terrify her the way Tori Vega did when she thought about losing her. It was easy and familiar and *safe* and for a moment, she'd let herself get caught up in all of it.

Her relationship with Tori Vega had never been easy. From the moment they’d met, Jade had felt something shift inside of her and it terrified her. Change wasn’t something she handled well and she’d been extra-cruel to Tori out of fear. 

When Sikowitz had sent them on a date, everything had changed again, but this time Jade had tentatively tried to accept it. When she asked Tori to keep them a secret, she’d been relieved when the other girl agreed but with that relief came guilt, a guilt that was only heightened by the disappointment Tori had tried to hide. 

Tori had helped her write the song she’d performed and together, they’d planned to come out to their friends afterward. But when Beck approached her, Jade’s blood had turned to ice within her veins and for just a moment, the temptation to fall back into a comfortable numbness had been too great to resist.

She'd regretted it the second the kiss had ended and she'd looked into the crowd and found Tori gone. They'd barely exited the stage when she'd told him that the kiss was a mistake and that she couldn't do this again, running after Tori as soon as the words were out, trailing in the wind behind her. 

But she hadn't found Tori that night, or the next day. She'd been refusing to answer Jade's calls or texts or requests for video chat and Jade had no idea what to do, so she'd shown up at her house after school after two days. 

_ Tori had looked like a mess, wearing a baggy, rumpled shirt with a pair of sweats and her glasses perched on her nose, and Jade had felt immediately guilty.  _

_ “Tori, would you listen to me?” she demanded, her voice raising with every word.  _

_ “Don’t yell at me,” Tori hissed, giving her a look so cutting that Jade felt it physically, taking a step back.  _

_ “Well if you would just listen to me--” she tried again, working on her volume.  _

_ “Why don’t you ever listen to me, Jade?” Tori glared. “I’ve done everything I can to make you trust me. I hid my sexuality from everyone we know because you were scared that they’d figure out what was going on between us. I let you get away with dumping coffee over my head and messing with my food and even framing me for hitting you during that stupid fight scene. And don’t get me started on Steamboat Suzy,” she scoffed, shaking her head.  _

_ “Tori--”  _

_ “No. I let you get away with all of that because I thought, somewhere deep down, you did actually like me. I thought you were just trying to push me away because you didn’t want to and for a couple of stupid months, I was even dumb enough to think that you actually loved me and weren’t just using me as a placeholder,” she said, her voice cracking.  _

_ Pulling her glasses off, she angrily swiped at the tears gathering in her eyes. “I’m done being your doormat, Jade. We’re done,” she said bitterly, setting her glasses on top of the piano.  _

_ Jade stood frozen in place, letting Tori’s words hit her. All that she could hear was yet another person she cared about telling her that she wasn’t enough, she never would be, and it lit a fire in her.  _

_ “Fine then,” she snapped, crossing her arms angrily over her chest. “If you want to be a fucking coward, then fine.” _

_ The silence between them was fraught with tension as they stared at each other. “I’m using your bathroom,” Jade growled after a long, tense moment that hung between them with the unseen weight it carried.  _

Jade had stormed to the bathroom to calm down and by the time she returned, Tori was gone. Furious, she'd decided just to leave, deciding that enough was enough.

That had been two days ago and Jade swore as she glared at her phone. She'd been determined not to be the one to break, not a *second* time, but that seemed unimportant as her mind turned to all of the good things Tori made her feel. 

So yeah, she was terrified when she was around her, but it was almost a *good* feeling. She trusted Tori enough to deal with it and she knew that this was her mess to clean up. As angry as she’d been at Tori calling her out on her shit, she also knew that she’d been right and she owed her an apology, for everything.

Taking a deep breath, she picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts, smiling softly in the darkened room as she saw her contact picture. It was one that she’d taken herself just after they’d started dating. Tori had dragged her to the park despite her vehement protests and she’d actually had a good time, especially when she’d scared the other girl just as she was taking a bite of her ice cream and instead ended up burying her nose in it. 

The photo was of Tori laughing, the green ice cream smeared all over her nose and her eyes twinkling even as she tried to look angry. It was everything that Jade had ever wanted and she cursed herself again, both for kissing Beck and for letting her pride get in the way for what she was going to make damn certain was the last time. 

Hitting the call button, she raised the phone to her ear, chewing on her fingernail nervously as it rang. 

And then, her world shattered.

She listened numbly as the recording played on a loop for a few times before the call automatically disconnected, her knuckles turning white from how hard she was gripping the phone. The Rejection Hotline. When the hell had Tori managed to get to her phone? Stupid question, she’d left it out while she went to the bathroom and come back out to find her gone. Stupid question, what did it matter when she’d done it, the fact was that she had and now Jade had no idea what to do. 

Slamming her head back against the headboard hard enough to hurt, she felt her eyes filling with tears and the phone fell to the bed as she came completely and totally undone. 

For a brief moment, she’d thought that maybe she could be fixed just like that stupid kite Vega had saved and put back together. She’d thought that maybe she did deserve something better than what she’d always accepted, that Vega could be the person she could trust. She’d thought that she could be the bigger person for once and apologize, make things right so that she could tell everyone that Tori was  _ hers _ .

She’d been an idiot and it was a mistake she’d never make again.

**TORI**

Tori lay on her bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars she’d put on her ceiling with Jade. God, had that really just been a month ago? She frowned, suddenly filled with a raging desire to rip every stupid one of them down. 

Stupid, childish. That had been what Trina had called them when she’d seen them and, for a second, she’d almost wilted. But Jade had put an arm around her shoulder and glared Trina’s way, making her older sister squeak and run out of the room, and she’d shaken the words off without a second thought. 

But now, Jade isn’t here and nothing makes sense and Tori just feels like a stupid child for ever having believed that anything could when it came to Jade. The push and pull between them had always been there, constantly escalating, but when they’d kissed after leaving Nozu’s the night of the date Sikowitz had forced them to go on, she’d started to believe that there was a potential happy ending for them after all. 

But that’s all dust now, scattered on the ground along with the pieces of Tori’s heart that Jade had stomped on the night that she’d kissed Beck on stage, in front of everyone. 

Stupid, she’d been so stupid to think she was anything but a toy for Jade to play with while she waited for Beck to come back to her. She wondered how often Jade had laughed at her in secret, knowing how fooled she had her--

She choked back a sob, flipping the covers back and standing up so quickly that she almost tripped, her body unused to the abrupt change in balance. Once she caught herself, she climbed onto the bed and began ripping the stars from the ceiling one-by-one. 

_ One. _ That was for ever letting herself believe that Jade could actually care about her, that she wasn’t just using her for whatever reason until she could get Beck back.

(But even in her rage, Tori doesn’t believe that for a second. Jade might be an amazing actress, but some things can’t be faked.)

_ Two.  _ That was for letting Jade see how miserable she’d made her two days earlier. She should have known that Jade would have come over, should have checked before she opened it. But she didn’t and now Jade was probably laughing at how easily fooled she was. 

(She works hard to ignore the pang in her gut that won’t let her believe that.)

_ Three.  _ That one is for still feeling guilty for changing her number to the Rejection Hotline in Jade’s phone. At the time, she’d been so overcome with fury that she hadn’t thought twice about seizing the opportunity of Jade leaving her phone out while she went to the bathroom, but she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt when she thought about Jade trying to call her now. 

(The twinge is actually a heavy ball constantly sitting in the pit of her stomach. She’s done a lot of things out of anger over the years that she later came to regret, but she can’t help but think this might be the biggest. Jade didn’t deserve that, no matter how much it helps to think that she did.)

_ Four. _ That was for Beck. Stupid, always in the way Beck who treated Jade as an afterthought when she was the whole goddamn reason for the constant happiness Tori felt. She knew that Jade had seen him try to kiss her on the video chat, just like she knew that Jade knew about some of the crueler things he’d said to her. But that didn’t matter because they were together again and the thought made her feel ill. 

(She knows that it’s not Beck’s fault. He didn’t know about them, no one did. But it eases her own guilt to shift more on him than is really his to bear.)

And just like that, the stars are scattered all over Tori’s bedroom floor and she lets out another sob, dropping to the bed like a stone. 

Everything she’d said to Jade the day she came over was true. Tori had forgiven Jade anything for too long, but that was on her. She knew she shouldn’t have taken it out on Jade as the words spilled from her lips, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. 

_ “ seen the way Jade looked afterward, so much like the broken girl who’d shown up on Tori’s doorstep after leaving Beck, but the comforter had become the reason for her heartbreak and she’d hardened her heart. _

_ Her heart clenched in her chest when she saw the way Jade looked, so much like the broken girl who’d shown up on Tori’s doorstep after leaving Beck, revealing the softness behind the facade. Her feet had almost taken a step forward before she stopped them, hardening her heart.  _

_ The next moment felt like the longest of Tori’s life, and her heart thundered in her chest as Jade called her a coward before storming off to the bathroom. Her phone was on the floor, having fallen out of her jacket pocket, and Tori felt her rage rise as she thought about everything Jade had done to torment her over the years, counting kissing Beck among them.  _

_ Picking up the phone, she unlocked it--Jade wasn’t the only one who did their research--and scrolled through to her contact.  _

_ Ignoring the pang in her heart at the sight of her contact photo and the memory it evoked, she used her own phone to look up a number her dad had told her about. Erasing her own number, she replaced it with the other before setting it back on the floor and darting up the stairs as she heard the heavy thuds of Jade’s footsteps coming down the hall.  _

_ Even as she’d raced up the stairs, filled with a vindictive kind of glee, the guilt burned in the back of her mouth bitterly, threatening to choke her. But she ignored it as she retreated into her bedroom and shut the door, hearing her own front door slam shut a moment later.  _

And the most fucked-up part of any of it, Tori thought with another sob, was that she would give anything to see Jade’s name pop up on her caller ID, to have her try to apologize and explain again because now, she might actually be ready to listen. 

But she made sure that would never happen again in a moment of anger so calculated and cruel that she doesn’t want to believe she could be responsible for it. But she was, is, and her stomach clenched as she pictured Jade trying to call her and reaching… that. 

The worst part is that Jade had opened up to Tori and Tori had used the moment of weakness against her. No matter what Jade had done to Tori in the past, and she could fill a notebook with them, she knows that she didn’t deserve for Tori to use her weakness against her. 

And as Tori looks at the remnants of her former constellation, she’s left wondering which one of them really destroyed their chances. And is anything ever really destroyed without repair if they're both still willing to fight for it?

It’s with those thoughts churning in her mind that Tori dressed and snuck quietly out of the house, snatching Trina’s keys from the peg where they’re kept. 

She doesn’t know if she can fix what she’d broken between them, or what Jade’s broken in her, but she knows that she’s bound and determined to at least try. 


End file.
